India Arie stepped onto Threads yesterday to educate users on the natural hair movement for Black women.
“there LITERALLY IS no curl specialist job with out the path we laid for you,” she said.
Threads erupted into a heated debate yesterday after former First Lady Michelle Obama commented on Black women’s reasoning for straightening their natural hair. Obama is currently on tour promoting her latest book, “The Look,” which is about the role of fashion and beauty in her political career. In a conversation with Tracee Ellis Ross, she discussed how Black women wore straight hair as a form of assimilation into white spaces.
“Let me explain something to white people. Our hair comes out curly. When we straighten it to follow your beauty standards, we are trapped by the straightness,” she said.” That’s why so many of us can’t swim, won’t go to the gym because we’re trying to keep our hair straight for y’all!”
Plenty of people online had something to say in response, but one Threads user in particular went viral over their comments.
“Dear Michelle Obama, newsflash black women do not straighten their hair because of white peoples beauty standards,” user Chanel Coco posted on Threads. “As a Curly natural myself most black women straighten their hair because they choose to and it’s easier to manage for them. Let’s drop this narrative that we do anything for the white beauty standard, black women are the true beauty standard. Why get on stage and say that nonsense?”
The rebuttal to this statement was swift, as many other users came out to defend the former First Lady, pointing out that Black women of Obama’s generation often straightened their hair to avoid discrimination, and that the acceptance of Black natural hair in professional spaces is recent. But it was Arie, who famously sings “I Am Not My Hair,” who stood out in the discourse. According to the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, she had been getting tagged under Chanel Coco’s post. She defended Obama’s comments.
“I want to thank everybody in these comments who is trying to educate this woman,” Arie wrote on X. “I did my 25 year bid of trying to help people awaken. Maybe the path we layed made it too easy to walk down. But I’m gonna thank y’all for doing this work. As far as I’m concerned, she can be rude and miseducated. In peace. And I too will remain …. in peace. She’ll learn when she learns. I guess it won’t be today.”
Arie continued, “we expect people to respect us and thank us for our work. But it doesn’t always go like that. And I have come to terms with that. Let her enjoy her curl specialist job that we all laid the ground for her to have in peace. Lol.”
This led to a bit of back and forth between the user Chanel Coco and Arie, the former saying she had never heard of the singer before. Arie tried to explain that it was the work of people like herself that allowed for young Black women now to wear their natural hair without fear of recourse. The two seemed to end the night somewhat agreeing to disagree, but Arie came back to Threads today with some final words.
“i slept on this and i realized – i responded out of my LOVE for black women. – her too,” she said in one post. “BUT! Tough love only has a CHANCE at working if the person knows you love them.”
